DJ Premier

I'd beg to differ that Bush is a "winner" considering the mess we're in now.

I actually laugh when i see the vote bush stickers, considering about 70% of the nation pretty much thinks he's a waste of space.

I believe Bush won because his team did an excellent job labeling Kerry as a coin-flipper. Was he really? Not so sure. I couldn't tell through his 2 hour long winded answers to simple questions. What is not arguable is that Bush is steadfast. Steadfast right over the cliff into the ravine.

We're really feeling that steadfastness now. Maybe steadfast is a bad word. I'm actually picturing a guy with earplugs covering his eyes.

Well, I agree with your position. The third of us are warmongers who want to go in and take out the country. The 2nd third are peaceniks and believe that if we all wish for peace, it will miraculously happen. Then the last 3rd of us say, lets stay out of it, let France protect us.

What you are saying is...befriend them. Interesting approach.

Off topic, but I hear that Irans oil reserves will run out in about 20 years or so. If that's true...they are in a serious crisis. If you were their leader, what would you do?

I believe Rudy Giuliani will prove to be the Democrat's biggest competition

 

I agree. He won a lot of recognition and respect after 9/11.

 

That's most likely who I'm voting for next year, but I still feel that a democrat will be in the White House in '08.

What do you know about Giuliani besides his 9/11 photo-ops? I live under his rule for 8 years. He rules with a strong fist and has a very stalinistic approach to things. He is a big government republican just like Bush. He will endorse laws that get into your home, take your rights and flush em down the toilet. But, he will get the job done, even if it means taking away your liberties along the way.

So... these forums apparently died. Is it because everyone has jumped on the Bush hatin'n bandwagon?

 

For people who decided to change their mind with in the past few years, boooo to you... for

 

a) following the masses and

2) not sticking with what you debated so passionately for in the past..

well, i left because these forums were less about debate and more about berating each other. I have much better things to do with my time.

good story Soul. Its always interesting to see how various people feel on this matter. I'm suprised that the woman you spoke to hates muslims to that extreme and thus would never vote for Obama.

 

Not too long ago, there was no doubt in my mind that we would have a democratic president in office next year, however, if Hillary or Obama win the democratic primaries, people may be afraid of the change and vote republican instead. Who knows for sure, but '08's election will no doubt be an interesting one.

Yep. And Soul's story is exactly how people like Bush get into office. The woman is basically voting against someone not for their policy choices but the spelling of their name and their personal religion. We have on one to blame but ourselves for the schmucks we put in office.

Sure - Sounds great. Let's give them nuclear energy and the ability to refine it and pop out some suitcase nukes for the fanatics to get into the US and blow us up.

 

I think what some fail to realize is these folks hate the West - the USA being a big part of the "West". They hate our culture, our society, our non-islamic religion, our women's rights, on and on and on the list goes. I firmly believe we should help control, with the assistance of other nations, who gets nuclear weapons and technology - to sit back and just "hope" that they will not be used against us will get lots of us killed IMO.

Let the rest of the world go protect something

So...now we're relying on the French to protect us? Wow, how far we have come.

I dont align with Bush 99% of the time, but I agree we shouldnt set a timetable for withdrawal. At least a public one. This should have been a closed discussion and classified.

Eleven lessons in McNamara's 1996 book In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam:

1. We misjudged then  and we have since  the geopolitical intentions of our adversaries … and we exaggerated the dangers to the United States of their actions.
   
2. We viewed the people and leaders of South Vietnam in terms of our own experience … We totally misjudged the political forces within the country.
   
3. We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people to fight and die for their beliefs and values.
   
4. Our judgments of friend and foe alike reflected our profound ignorance of the history, culture, and politics of the people in the area, and the personalities and habits of their leaders.
   
5. We failed then  and have since  to recognize the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, forces and doctrine…
   
6. We failed as well to adapt our military tactics to the task of winning the hearts and minds of people from a totally different culture.
   
7. We failed to draw Congress and the American people into a full and frank discussion and debate of the pros and cons of a large-scale military involvement … before we initiated the action.
   
8. After the action got under way and unanticipated events forced us off our planned course … we did not fully explain what was happening and why we were doing what we did.
   
9. We did not recognize that neither our people nor our leaders are omniscient. Our judgment of what is in another people's or country's best interest should be put to the test of open discussion in international forums. We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose.
   
10. We did not hold to the principle that U.S. military action … should be carried out only in conjunction with multinational forces supported fully (and not merely cosmetically) by the international community.
    
11. We failed to recognize that in international affairs, as in other aspects of life, there may be problems for which there are no immediate solutions … At times, we may have to live with an imperfect, untidy world.
    

Robert Strange McNamara is an American business executive and a former United States Secretary of Defense. McNamara served as Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, during the Vietnam War period. He resigned that position to become President of the World Bank (1968 – 1981).

They don't say that they reviewed it all but I am so fed up with relying on these people to give me information that the government isn't.

We rely on them less when the government is less secretive. So to say you don't want to rely on the press, you'd have to break the typical republican closed government ways.

Sooo....he was going to veto opposition to something he didnt really know much about? wha?

FORT CAMPBELL, Kentucky (AP) -- Wearing vests covered in military patches, a band of motorcyclists rolls around the country from one soldier's funeral to another, cheering respectfully to overshadow jeers from church protesters.

 

They call themselves the Patriot Guard Riders, and they are more than 5,000 strong, forming to counter anti-lame protests held by the Rev. Fred Phelps at military funerals.

 

Phelps believes American deaths in Iraq are divine punishment for a country that he says harbors homosexuals. His protesters carry signs thanking God for so-called IEDs -- explosives that are a major killer of soldiers in Iraq.

full story - http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/02/21/funeral.m...s.ap/index.html

Not much I can say to this.

What would happen in the USA if the NY Times posted a bunch of racist cartoons degrading black people? What if it were the 60's when it happened?

Having taught for a few years (granted it was in the Big 10 and not NYC public schools), I can tell you this: there is a popularity contest and evaluations from students can shut you down. A hard, challenging, fair teacher has an uphill battle to get good evaluations from students.

 

Many public schools from the students to the school board are too full of complacency. America has been #1 for so long that kids no longer feel compelled to do well, because life is just so plain easy.

 

That contract has gotten out of hand, but parents and the school board are the ones who prioritized a labor contract protecting jobs over protecting kids.

 

Isn't that the REAL problem? Is the problem that the union did its job? Or is it that NOBODY did the job of prioritizing the kids and education. (no question mark)

 

If you're well to-do, then you should live in a community with enough tax revenue to buy good schools and teachers and to have a more responsive system. If your public schools are like this, go into debt and borrow money to send your kid to private school.

Well, my take is that unions are just another big business. And like some big businesses, there are some bad things that happen. I'm sure a thousand examples could be mined that show some very interesting behavior of big business. Does it mean all big business is bad? Not in my book. But with big business, comes a need for unions. Employers hold too much power. Unions balance that out.

xxxx

Talking about fallacious methods used to try and prove opinions on the topic is very much on topic.

What Ish posted in response is in fact...a fact.

Use of statistics to say something is a fact is not really a fact. It's just a statistic that supports an opinion.

And thats a fact.

I'm not talking monkeys. I have a serious question about evolution:

 

How many of you think that X-Men or Waterworld type mutations are possible or likely in the future of the human species?

 

Personally, it seems feasable in some way that we will adapt to living in space or different environmental conditions.

Definitely adapt/evolve, but x-men type stuff is just weird. I mean...turning my skin to solid steel? Not likely.

Evolution and adaptation occur even today. There are those who can survive on half of the oxygen most of us require. e.g., Sherpas in the base of the alps. How come they require so little oxygen? They aren't conditioned to do so. They are born that way. I believe we are always evolving. Our 75 yaer life on this planet is so small and insignificant, that is gone in a blink. A billion years from now, we'll all be very different.

My apologies Yomamma.

and apparently you have yet to grasp the english language at all.

 

The whole reason this topic was created was so that we would stop using insults in the PA. Was that comment really nessesary?

]

You don't understand plain english when it bites you on the behind.

Well Yomamma, it takes two to tango. Glad you pointed out the one you disagreed with.

Ish, let it go. I don't play on gc servers because of the admin style. I don't try and fight it. I just don't play there. Same rules apply here. You shouldn't care what lunk does. I don't know how else to put it but point blankly that I honestly don't care what he thinks or does. Delete my post? Whatever. Edit my post? Whatever. Warn me? Whatever. Ban me? Whatever. At the end of the day, I am mostly a open guy, so I doubt these things would happen so often that I'd just go away like I did on the game servers. Just play by Lunk's rules...even though no one knows what they are.

DJ Premier, what do you think the big deal is about with insulting people?

I don't think there is anything to really think about. In a political forum, you will find republicans talking down on democrats, conservatives talking down on liberals, religious vs secular, blah blah blah. If you go back and read all the threads in the history of these forums, the topic themselves are all about these differences. Opinions that greatly differ from one side to the other will almost always include some level of showing disrespect to the other. It's the nature of the beast.

So by saying you can't talk badly about public political figures, in a political forum, is basically saying...don't talk about politics. There are rare exceptions but politics is just divisive in nature. Period. Now I could spend all day pointing out the little jabs that everyone does or I can accept that politics is not easy to talk about (thus the reason that it is generally not a good idea to talk about politics at work) and then just move on. I honestly don't care enough to actually report posts. Now I dunno who else is reporting posts, but that last one was really just done to prove a point.

I've already spent enough time on this topic. The truth of the matter is, there are some ppl in these forums that I really don't give a crap about. My level of respect for them and their opinions are so low, that I almost find it insulting to myself to waste brain cells on em. I've decided that I won't waste these brain cells. If I have a thought I want to express, it will be done in the most neutral one liner I can muster.

I take offense. He called someone I admire as someone who reminds him of a relative of a horse. Please issue a warning asap.

the workers would abuse themselves?

I'm sure there are some that like to self-abuse. But I think that has nothign to do with unions. But that's just me.